The present invention relates to an endoscope system adapted to manage data of a plurality of endoscopes.
There are endoscopes provided with a solid state imaging device for capturing images inside human body. Such endoscopes, so called electronic endoscopes, are normally connected to a processor that transforms the output signals from the solid state imaging device into image signals so that output devices such as monitors and video printers can display or print the image captured by the solid state imaging device.
The endoscope is connected detachably to the processor so that the endoscope can be changed to a suitable type in accordance with the location of the human body to be inspected or treated with the endoscope. That is, the endoscope and the processor can be used in various combinations.
The endoscope is usually provided with a memory, such as an EEPROM, into which various kinds of data related to the endoscope are stored. Data stored into the memory includes, for example, type and serial number of the endoscope, and calibration data for adjusting the white balance of the image captured by the solid state imaging device. The calibration data for adjusting the white balance includes the amount of brightness increase/decrease of red and blue colors, which will be referred hereinafter as to “wb(r)” and “wb(b)”, respectively.
The endoscope type and serial number are read by the processor as the endoscope is connected to it to display them on, for example, the monitor. The calibration data for white balance, wb(r) and wb(b), are also read by the processor to adjust the white balance of the image generated in the processor based on the output signals from the solid state imaging device.
The white balance adjusting ability, however, are slightly different between each processor. Therefore, the processor often fails to achieve proper white balance by adjusting the colors merely in accordance with the calibration data obtained from the endoscope. In such case, proper white balance is achieved by performing manually a fine adjustment.
Recently, processors have been developed that are provided with a memory for storing the calibration data obtained as a result of the fine adjustment mentioned above. The calibration data is stored in the memory in association with data intrinsic to the endoscope such as serial number as a dataset like a database so that the processor can utilize the calibration data if the endoscope is connected and used again in the future. In this way, the processor eliminates the necessity of repetitive manual fine adjustment of the white balance.
The number of endoscopes, however, of which data can be registered to the memory of the processor is restricted because of the finite available memory space thereof. Thus, if there is not available memory space for storing data of a new endoscope, unimportant data such as that of old or seldom used endoscopes should be deleted manually to free up memory space. Such manual operation is a cumbersome task and may cause deletion of important data such as that of new or frequently used endoscopes for lack of proper care.
For example, there are endoscopes purchased and endoscopes leased for a certain term. The leased endoscopes, in particular, endoscopes leased for a short term tends to quickly increase the number of registered endoscopes until the memory is filled. The data of such leased endoscopes remain in the memory even after the leased term is over and prevent the registration of a new purchased endoscope of which data registration should take precedence to the that of leased endoscope's data.
Further, if the data filling the memory includes both data of purchased and leased endoscopes, the manual operation for registering new endoscope data may cause deletion of purchased endoscope data instead of data of the endoscope leased in the past and already returned.